Hope all goes well. Virgin redeye. LA-Heathrow. Arrived unshaven, disheveled, dressed down. Zipped through Fastrack. Immigration officer sized me up, guessed, “Banker.” So I tried it on, “No sir, I help old people, pensioners.” He raised a brow. And I smiled, couldn’t help it, it just snuck out. Yeah, blew my own cover, so came clean, “Sorry, yes sir, Finance.” Gotta work on that delivery, someday it could save my l
Hope all goes well. Yeah, it happened. Snuck up on me. Always does. Autumn. Just seemed oddly darker one morning. The air changed too. Tasted different. Of course, next come pumpkins, followed by turkeys. Dradles. Then Santa. Good little boys get coal this year, naughty ones get orphaned. Yeah the Street’ll be snowing pink slips, it’s Occupied too. So what’s a scared little market-maker to do? Boo! Oooh. Yeah, they’r
Hope all goes well. Jetted off to Mississippi. A proud farming town. Entered a home. One of my partners stood tall, surrounded by his clan. Their patriarch lay flat, at peace. Walked down the line, paying respect. Got to Perry. Hugged. Lost my words, he did too. And our eyes couldn’t quite meet, or things woulda gotten real wet. Been a rainy mth. Glad to flip the calendar. I turn 45 Tues. Yeah, thanks bro. Gettin’ ol
Hope all goes well. Got things real wrong. Feels good to get it out in the open. No joke. Light is nature’s great disinfectant. Started Sept with a big bet: the Euro would fall versus Emerging Market FX. Check out a chart of Brazil’s Real (fell over 20% in Sept). OMFG. Anyhow, trading markets for over 20yrs conditions you to flee fast (and structure well). ’Cause if you live to fight another day, well, sooner or late
Hope all goes well. It was one of those wks. Raining. Pooring. At home. At work. Yeah, that’s Life. What happened? Well, for many mths the 2/20 crowd’s been streaming through theatre turnstiles in Rio, Tijuana, Jakarta, Moscow, Mumbai, you name it – they just love foreign action films (we do too). Anyhow, some prankster musta yelled, “Fire!” Or even worse, “Grease Fire!” And all hell broke loose. The Mayfair/Mi
Hope all goes well. Stormed through NY. The headwind we once faced has shifted; felt a breeze at my back. I’m real grateful. Met many old friends, new ones too. Consensus across my 20 meetings? Mkts are pricing bad economic/political news and they’re gonna get it (for a long time), but banking systems ain’t gonna freeze-up like’08-’09, ’cause central banks got good playbooks, but Obanke is running outta ammo, o
Hope all goes well. Whew. Flipped the calendar. What is it about August? That month always sucks. Time to sell some shit. ‘Cause, well, it’s almost October. Overall: What an ungodly mess. Yup. Scientists warned we’ve hit the tipping point. 22,000 pieces of man-made junk orbit Earth at 17,500 mph. Colliding, exploding, multiplying. That chain reaction destroys satellites, and so on, and so forth. Gonna tak
Hope all goes well. School started. Walked Teddy home. He’s 6, no front teeth,“Daddy, when I’m grown up, in High School, I’m getting a Guinea Pig with a Mohawk, a kitty too, ’cause you’ll be too old to say no.” He may be right. I’ll be 56, Steve Jobs’ age. So what the hell, I think we’ll get a little pussy now, with any luck he’ll eat the Pig. Overall: Emcee knocked frantically, “Ben, dammit, Bernanke, open up, you’r
Hope all goes well. I haven’t had a proper vacation for yrs. Sometimes you just need to be told to take a break. We get another mth or two like this and ya know, Frankfurt, Paris, London, and DC politicos may shut mkts for a little time-out. I got my beach chair dusted off, reading list picked out – just in case. Overall: Hey bro, keep your head down. Kaboom! Oooh, there goes another one. Kabang! And that’s onl
Hope all goes well. What a freakin’ circus. Spotlights swung wildly. Skinny little Obama, shouldering a $15trln economy, stood frozen high on the wire, looking right, left, but mostly down. Far below, Bernanke frantically inflated his leaky whoopee cushion (not a single trampoline remains). Some Fed clowns threw dung at Ben’s promise of 0% rates though mid-2013 (7-3 vote, most contentious since 1992). A Donkey fled,